The Political Economy of the World Trading System by Bernard M. Hoekman

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Synopsis

The World Trade Organization is likely to be a major international organization for the foreseeable future. This volume, the first full-length study of the WTO and GATT from the viewpoint of public choice and political economy, details the mechanics of the multilateral trading system that emerged from the Uruguay Round of GATT. The authors, who were involved in the negotiations of the Uruguay Round, explain why WTO rules are phrased the way they are, the successes and failures of WTO and GATT, and how business, industrial associations and political lobbies influence the multilateral trading system.

Bernard Hoekmanmanages the World Bank's international trade department. Prior positions at the World Bank include Research Manager of the trade and international integration program in the Development Research Group, leading the trade capacity building program of the World Bank Institute and working as a trade economist in the Middle East/North Africa and Europe and Central Asia departments. He has published widely on the functioning of the multilateral trading system, trade in services, preferential trade agreements and trade and investment policy. Between 1988 and 1993 he worked as a research economist in the GATT Secretariat in Geneva. He is a graduate of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan and is a Research Fellow of the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research. Dr. Michel Kosteckiis Professor and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Economics of the Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He has been founding director of The Enterprise Institute at the same university and directed the joint doctoral program in Administrative Sciences of the French-speaking Swiss universities. He completed his PhD at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and worked at the Institute of Operations Research and Applied Mathematics at the University of Zurich. During the Uruguay Round Professor Kostecki was Counsellor in the GATT (now WTO) secretariat. He was Professor of Business Economics at the Université de Montréal (HEC) in Canada and Investment Manager at a financial company of one of the leading German banks. He has published extensively on international trade and business, acted as consultant to organisations such as ASEAN, ICTSD, ITC, OECD, UNCTAD, World Bank, WTO, various ministries and multinational companies.